Girls basketball: No. 3 West Albany in good hands with return of coach Mike Haberly

A familiar face on the bench has helped West Albany maintain its status as a contender in Class 5A girls basketball.

Mike Haberly, who coached West Albany to eight state playoff appearances in nine seasons before stepping down in 2003 to watch his son Jake play high school sports, has returned as coach and has the third-ranked Bulldogs off to a 12-0 start.

Haberly retired from teaching at the school in June, but when coach Craig Swanson resigned to become the athletic director and assistant principal at Sprague, Haberly couldn’t resist the opportunity to coach again.

“To be completely honest, when I stepped away in ’03, I really hoped that whoever would take over for me might do it for three, four, five years and decide, ‘No, I’m done,’ because I really wanted to come back and do it again,” Haberly said. “That never materialized.”

Randy Nyquist coached the Bulldogs for two seasons before Swanson took over. He led the team to the state tournament four times in seven seasons, including a runner-up finish in 2011 and third place last season.

“It was really hard to walk away because I knew the type of team we had,” Swanson said. “Knowing Mike was going to be one of the leading candidates to get that job, I felt really good that I’d be handing those kids off to a really good coach.”

The team graduated leading scorer Samantha Siegner, a 6-foot-3 wing who is on a rull-ride scholarship at Oregon State, but returned three starters in 6-1 junior wing Ashton Siegner, 5-9 sophomore guard Corey James and 5-11 senior guard Lauren Conser. James and Siegner average 15 and 13 points per game, respectively.

“I’m happy to be back coaching,” said Haberly, who coached his daughters, Jennifer and Amanda, during his first stint at West Albany. “It’s a lot of fun to be back, but it’s even more fun to come back to this situation.”